The Partition

Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar needs you on his 45th death anniversary on Tuesday (June 5, 1973). Chances are he would be reviled by Leftists Sitaram Yechury, and “Liberals” Ramachandra Guha, for his alleged affinity with Adolf Hitler. It would help them paint Rashstriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a Fascist and Nazist force, a virulent campaign meant to neutralize the sting out of Pranab Mukherjee’s upcoming visit to RSS headquarters on June 7.

“Guruji” as Golwalkar is known, was in public eye for a long period between 1940-1973 as the second sarsangchalak of RSS. In his profuse writings, letters, articles, statements and interviews, there is NOT ONE single sentence which declares Guruji’s admiration for Hitler. Not one. Yet libraries of articles and books repeat the lie to run down the world’s biggest mass organization.

This ocean of lies floats on a mere two paragraphs which appeared in Guruji’s maiden book in 1938, “We, Our Nationhood Defined”. The book has never been reprinted since 1947. It’s been over 70 years but these two paragraphs alone is the edifice around which an entire cottage industry of RSS-bashing, Hindu-mocking has flourished. Only Shiva knows how many careers have been launched; reputations air-brushed; funds transferred to crooks reaping the harvest out of these two paragraphs.

As an analogy, why Karl Marx is not Hitler-like for he too described Jews as “arch-exploiters”? Or John F. Kennedy so, for he praised Fascism-for-Italy and Nazism-for-Germany in the 1930s? Or our own Pt. Nehru for he swore by socialism even as millions were being massacred in its name in Stalin’s Russia?

But let’s look at these two contentious paragraphs first:

FIRST PARAGRAPH

“From the standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture or language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence or merge into the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment–not even citizens’ rights.”

Let’s look at key issues in the paragraph. One, there is no call for genocide for it says “minorities can stay in the country.” The sentence “not claim any privilege” isn’t objectionable either for that’s the decree of “secularists” alone. All the democracies of the world are run by this maxim.

As for Citizens’ Rights, before we describe its context, let’s remember most Muslim countries till today exclude non-Muslims in its political decision-making system. Golwalkar’s prescription for Non-Hindus is vastly different from Sharia’s prescription for non-Muslims. Golwalkar isn’t stopping non-Hindus from bearing arms or riding a horse. So if Golwalkar/RSS are fascist, how would you describe Quran and Sharia?

Now look at the context of this sentence. In 1938, the talk of a Muslim nation was gathering wind. Muslims advocated the two-nation theory in India. Such a theory had been applied on Austria-Hungarians, Ottoman and Czarist empires. Lenin has supported it; so had USSR constitution. Muslims claimed they were distinct from Hindus by dress and customs; food and marriage; religion and holy days etc. They also lived in separate neighbourhoods. So Golwalkar was only accepting the Muslim logic.

Those advocating a Muslim nation in 1938 unambiguously expressed and defined Muslim community as a separate nation (ummah). So if you are a separate nation, how could you be a full citizen in a Hindu state? As Dr Koenraad Elst says: “Remember, the same choice was given to Kennedy (John), the first Roman catholic president of the (protestant) US. He was asked if he was loyal to Roman Catholic Church or country? He said country.”

Now let’s turn to the second paragraph in contention:

SECOND PARAGRAPH

“To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

This paragraph again must be viewed in the context of 1938. This was the year when Hitler was hugely popular in India and no less around the world. He had transformed Germany; challenged the order of colonial powers. Why, even after WW II, Charles de Gaulle was spewing anti-Jews views. Eugenic politics was on in US and Scandinavia till the 1970s. The “Hitler Salute” was fairly common well into the 1950s. Democratic countries were racists and publicly proud of it. Subhas Bose was hailed in India even though he had joined hands with Japan, an ally of Fascist-Nazist forces.

Just to highlight the double standards, look at how Mahatma Gandhi shed tears on destruction of British Parliament and Westminister Abbey in WW II. But he had no such feel for monuments destroyed in Germany. Was England’s record in India any better than Germany in other countries in 1940?

All Golwalkar said was that Germany proved two nations in one state was not feasible. He drew an analogy but never supported Nazism. He could’ve done so in 1938 since England was still not at war with Germany.

If Golwalkar was a Nazi, he wouldn’t have extensively quoted Western scholars in his work. For instance he approved of John Stuart Mills’ words: “Free institutions are impossible in a country made up of different nationalities.” Golwalkar publicly believed in the authority of League of Nations (while fascist Italy left League of Nations in 1937).

Golwalkar never said Muslims must not hold public office; or intermarriage must be clamped down upon; or that “pogroms of Muslims” was the answer. He didn’t ask for Muslim professors to be removed from universities after the Partition. Golwalkar looked for assimilation of minorities; not dissimilation like Hitler did. What you would never be told is that US, England and France etc—all democratic countries—had refused rights to minorities in League of Nations. They all stood for assimilation of minorities. And so did Golwalkar.

Golwalkar had seen how Muslims in India had appealed to foreign Muslim powers, like Amir of Afghanistan, during the Khilafat Movement. His appeal for their assimilation in the 1930s thus appears perfectly legitimate. Those criticizing Golwalkar, must tell us what was RSS’ position during WW II? They must also be asked: Why don’t you quote from Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, formulated in 1965 and the official ideology of RSS? Every BJP member has to swear by it.

In the same book, Golwalkar says: “The superiority complex of the White Man blurs their vision. (We.., Pg 6, 11).” Does it look like a comment of “White-Only” Nazis?

An American student who travelled Europe in the 1930s, wrote to his parents saying fascism is right for Italy; Nazism for Germany.” This student was no other than John F. Kennedy. Nobody calls Kennedy as Fascist or Nazist. Those who have no moral compunction while doing the same to Golwalkar and RSS, are at best agents of Left-Liberal mafia. They feed on chaos and anarchy; bloodshed and genocide in a society. Spot them in the light of Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to RSS Headquarters on Thursday.

Ramachandra Guha and Harsh Mander began—and hopefully ended—“the minority space” series in Indian Express on Tuesday. On the Day of Judgment—for they would prefer such an option rather than the presence of Bhagwan Vishnu—the duo would be hard pressed to explain the deviousness of their heart; the venoms of their actions.

Over the last fortnight or so, Indian Express has almost daily pushed this “minority space” agenda on its edit pages. This stems from the fear of Left-Liberals that, God forbids, if Muslims—and Dalits—were able to recognize that BJP and Modi are their best friends, the last plank of their survival would sink and take them down too in the vast ocean of human junk and wastefulness.

The agenda of these two academic/activist charlatans is clear: Make Muslims fearfully conscious of their separateness from the Hindu majority so that they are further pushed into a seized mentality and a common ground with Hindus is never created. Create Hinduphobia so the Muslims are not able to see the deviousness of Congress, BSP, Left who have done practically nothing for the minority in the last 70 years. The idea is to deny Hindus and Muslims a common ground.

Guha and Mander would skillfully hide the fact that out of 125 Muslim-majority seats in Uttar Pradesh, 84 went to BJP in the last assembly elections. That BJP has 79 Dalit MPs, 549 Dalit MLAs and one Dalit president.

While they beat their breasts and bemoan Muslims being treated as second-class citizens in Hindu-majority India, you would never see them acknowledge that it was Muslims who plunged the dagger of partition into the heart of this nation. You would never find them question Asaduddin Owaisi as to when the latter swears by the sanctity of the Constitution, what problem he has with the protection it offers to cows; or when its core ethos ask for a Uniform Civil Code.

You would never see them encourage Muslims to let Hindus have their way with the Ram Janmabhoomi. After all, even in austere places like Saudi Arabia it is common to move Masjid out of the way, in case infrastructural or other such need arises. Why, just four years ago, there was even a proposal to move Prophet Muhammad’s tomb! After all, Quran ordains that Namaaz could be read anywhere, it doesn’t need a Masjid for the act. While Namaaz could thus be performed even on roads, there can only be one Ram Janmabhoomi. Guha and Mander would never ask Muslims to make this one small gesture and see the flood of goodwill which would emanate from the majority. Imagine how much strength and unity just one gesture could do to the idea of a unified and strong India.

Guha and Mander would never highlight the fact that the 1857 War of Independence was an act of revolt by the Hindus who nevertheless chose a Muslim—Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar—to be their leader in the struggle.

You would never see them making an appeal to Muslims to do meaningful reforms. After all, there is a great deal of truth that unlike Christianity went through a Reformation Age, and Hindus had the Bhakti Movement to cleanse the outdated practices, Muslims perhaps never quite clinically reevaluate if a few of Quran’s maxims needed a debate. You would never find Guha or Mander question the Muslim leadership on their lack of progressive agenda down the centuries to the present modern age.

Guha even bemoans that Hindus were once led by Nehru-Gandhi and now by Modi-Shah. He would never reflect if this change is because Hindus feel Nehru and Gandhi betrayed them and the nation during the Independence struggle by appeasing Muslims—which led to thousands of Hindus lives lost during the Khilafat movement and Direct Action Day– and causing the Partition.

Men like Guha and Mander would show a trishul as a sign of Hindu fundamentalism; they would never analyse why such a majority still treats three Khans as their superstars. Why an APJ Abdul Kalam is loved and respected by practically every educated Hindu.

Most tellingly, Guha and Mander are now marginalized voices because of their selective truths. Just look at the reactions Guha has managed on his twitter handle. By mid-day, it had barely touched 100 reactions. And most of them were scathing to his piece that has appeared in Indian Express on Tuesday.

A point about Indian Express too (And The Wire, predictably joined the chorus). While they pick up every major (Guha) and minor (Apporvanand) voice to create fear psychosis about “minority space”, why there is never an intellectual giant such as Subramaniam Swamy or Rajiv Malhotra being asked to present their viewpoints? Why stray incidents are picked and highlighted to paint the entire Hindu community in bad light?

The fresh violence against Hindus in West Bengal calls for the collective conscience of this country.

DALALS (Damn Left and Lutyens Scribes), as expected, first ignored and then dumbed it down to the fabricated Governor-Chief Minister spat.

Political parties such as Congress, Communists and regional heavyweights, avoided mention of any atrocity against the Hindus. Rahul Gandhi trained his eyes and concern on PM’s silence on China.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), flogged everyday as the face of a communalist Saffron, haven’t uttered a word in anger. (So next time they are termed bigots, use this instance to shut the pseudo-sikulars up).

But then what’s new?

No less than 600 temples were destroyed in Bangladesh in 1992. Thousands of Hindus were killed and raped; paraded naked on the streets of Bhola town, shops looted, deities desecrated.

There was little outrage in media or from any State.

In Pakistan, among the near 300 temples destroyed, the demolition of one was personally supervised by a minister in Lahore. Dozens of Hindus were murdered.

The collective silence of the world was deafening.

The exodus of Kashmiri Pundits is a reality. A community uprooted and displaced still carries psychological and financial scars.

But don’t expect it to shake the conscience of this country’s intelligentsia or media.

The partition of 1947 created a Muslim state in Pakistan and afforded them the “freedom.” But the Hindus “haven’t been recognized as a nation or a state nor a control over their own homeland,” as Abhas Chatterjee, author of The Concept of Hindu Nation, mentioned.

If any Jew is treated unfairly in any part of the world, the State of Israel, as their representative, loses no time in raising the issue. Contrast this with the case of Sunil Wadhera, a Hindu who died in an accident in Saudi Arabia a few years ago. As against a policy of compensation of 6-7 lakh dinars offered to a Muslim, Wadhera was extended only 17,000 dinars. Reason, he was a Kafir. “The value of his life was no more than a paltry sum,” wrote Abhas Chatterjee “What’s significant is that even against such an inhuman, outrageous affront, there was no State which could raise its voice on behalf of the Hindu.”

What had upset the discerners was that India, which all along had supported the Arab cause in Palestine, didn’t take up Wadhera’s matter with the Saudi government.

As scholar Dr. Koenraad Elst says: “The Hindu death toll in post-Independence riots in East Bengal already outnumbers the Muslim death toll in Hindu-Muslim clashes in the whole of South Asia by far.” Yet you would hardly find this mentioned in any discourse in mainstream media and academia.

In the East Bengal genocide of 1971, the main victims of Pakistan army’s brutality were Hindus (and this doesn’t include Bengalis). That genocide of millions outnumbers all other massacres in Partition and post-Partition by a mile. Yet, all governments, be it in India, South Asia or West, discourage any discourse on it. (But the unfortunate killing of a missionary such as Graham Staines or the cow vigilantism by a fringe is drummed up again and again as a proof of reactionary Hindus).

India’s Constitution has nothing recognizably Hindu about it. India’s Constitution was but an adapted version of the British Government of India Act of 1935. It was decreed by a ruling class of Indians who were largely lawyers of Western moorings.

The preamble of the Indian Constitution talks of justice, equality and liberty—all of them are Western notions, a byproduct of the French Revolution. Where’s Swami Vivekananda’s cry of Dharma and spirituality, renunciation and service, tolerance and harmony?, as Chatterjee observed.

The first thing Colonizers do is to make Colonies appear inferior to them, particularly in the matter of their culture. The first set of India’s ruling class more or less continued the depressing trend: a trend where everything connected with the essence of the land was derided as worthless. Observe the contempt of this anglicized set of DALALS today on the basic ethos of this land and you would have your answer.

Till Modi came, only Lal Bahadur Shastri and PV Narasimha Rao could be said to be practicing Hindus among the Prime Ministers; not the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or VP Singh even though they never abandoned Hinduism.

The list of Hindus’ grievances are many: From the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 which stops India from taking up the maltreatment of Hindus in Pakistan; to the prickly Article 30 of the Constitution; to the issue of Conversion; and to the matter of control over temple management; to name just a few, the majority in this country is increasingly mindful of being ignored by all and sundry.

The violence against Hindus in West Bengal (and Kerala) and the deafening silence of every stakeholder who claims to have interest of India at heart, is a historical fact. Hindus can’t understand why Ram Navmi is “communal” and “Muharram” a religious festival in certain parts of this country.

The last word of this piece must belong to Chatterjee alone. “We are still a subjugated, enslaved nation. Nehruvian Secularists are not our own people…We have to liberate our motherland from their stranglehold and earn our freedom.”

Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi on 30th January 1948. We also know the provocation was Gandhi’s insistence to newly-formed Indian government that Pakistan be paid the obligated Rs.55 crores from the treasury.

Godse’s full statement in his trial was banned for 20 years till the Bombay High Court lifted it in 1968. It bears a reminder now for both Hindus and Muslims lest a similar communal frenzy overtakes the nation in our lifetimes, abetted by forces who don’t have the interests of Muslims, certainly not of Hindus, and most definitely not of the nation we know as India.

Godse believed Muslims were appeased by Gandhi at the cost of Hindus. He cited several instances such as Khilafat Movement in the early 20s; the move to separate Sind from Bombay presidency in 1928; Mahatma’s “neither support nor opposition” to the Government of India Act of 1935 which allowed elections on communal lines and prepared the way for the horrific Partition; and the Great Calcutta Killingsand Noakhali Riots where lakhs of Hindu men and women paid with their lives and honour.

The Muslim League feared Hindu domination. Hinduphobia was built upon by Jinnah and other leaders of the Muslim League, abetted by British policy of “divide-and-rule.” Gandhi’s desire for a united front of Hindus and Muslims against British never materialized. His doctrine of Ahimsa didn’t work. It only caused rivers of blood to flow in front of his eyes. His turned out to be violent pacifism.

MODERN TIMES: Muslim viewpoint

Fast forward to modern times. Muslims perceive a hostile climate against their lives and food habits abetted by the central BJP government. They don’t stop to question:

(a)if BJP indeed is communal how come it doesn’t react to hundreds of Hindu killings in Kerala and Bengal? Why Advani’s Ayodhya’s rath-yatra was completely bloodless;

(b)How come its first act was to provide new subsidy to Islamic schools;

(c)If BJP indeed was fundmanetalist, how come the most strident Hindu voices such as Arun Shourie and Dr. Subramanium Swamy were never inducted in the Cabinet?

(d)Every time a stray voice, such as Sakshi Maharaj or Jyoti Niranjan go extreme, the government most vehemently come down on it;

HINDU VIEWPOINT

Hindus have their own grouse.

(a)Hindus pride in their religion is termed as “bigotry”;

(b)Hindus can’t come to terms with Ayodhya where Rajiv Gandhi himself had allowed Hindus to worship in 1986 and where all the eminent historians, such as Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib were shown to be manipulating history and archeology by the three-member jury;

(c)Hindus detest when their nose is rubbed on the ground on their cultural sensibility, such as “jallikattu”, “Durga Puja”, “Padmavati” among others;

(d)They feel helpless when the organized intelligentsia of this country (media, academia, Left-Liberals) deny them the platform to air their views. Their viewpoint is never represented;

Above all, Hindus feel that media/Left-Liberals/academics for too long have played the role of British “divide-and-rule” in this country. Fed by foreign money and preachers, missionaries of specific countries of monotheist religions such as Islam and Christianity, every effort is being made to make a pagan religion like Hinduism suffer, and if possible, to disappear.

Englightened Hindus feel aghast that their Muslim brethrens can’t look at the example of the Vajpayee government (1998-2004) and see through this game.

(a)These very same experts had predicted Hindu fascism and that “all Muslims into the Indian Ocean” under the Vajpayee regime;

(b)Despite the Kargil outrage in 1999, Vajpayee stopped the Army to strike across the border at invaders’ base;

(c)It was BJP which had thrown the Indian media market open to foreign media ownership despite the strident opposition by these very forces who today champion the idea of “freedom of speech.”

Hence, I propose a following manifesto for Hindus and Muslims for the safety of their future generations and unity of India (for god’s sake, how many divisions you want, you stupid):

(a)That we are different but we have lived in harmony in the past and we can live in harmony in present and future;

(b)That we would learn our historical lessons and wouldn’t allow India-breakers to play on our fault-lines;

(c)That we would see each other’s point of view on cow-slaughter, such as food habits and religious sensibility and accommodate each other strictly on the laws of the land;

(d)That Hindus would come forward on killings in the name of cow-vigilante and Muslims likewise would question the media’s narrative on Bengal and Kerala as well as constant attempt to denigrate our armed forces;

Above all, our religious moorings shouldn’t be allowed to override our concern for One India, One Unity. A Uniform Civil Code isn’t an attack on Shariat. And if it is, Muslims anyway submit to such rulings in France or Australia. The majority in this country has chosen BJP to lead India’s destiny till 2019 and we ought not to let our communal prejudice or bias interfere in its task.

And certainly not allow these India-breakers a field day. They are desperate and fast losing ground. Their propaganda has no effect on the electorates. India is a virtual heaven in modern comity of nations. Muslims are safer here than in any other non-Muslim country of the world. We shouldn’t become a pawn to a handful of India-breakers who are subsisted, funded and promoted by foreign forces.

Just remember: we can all wear our religious glasses but it must show the horrible future which our children would suffer in times to come.